NGPF Blog

Ok, I know that retirement is a long way off for your students, which makes it difficult to engage them on the topic. What if the focus instead was on the actions that you students can take in their 20s to set themselves up well for that period far off into the future?
Here's a Washington Post article that lists five actions that 20-somethings can take to get a jumpstart on their "nest egg." Well, it turns out we have an NGPF resource recommendation for each of their tips. Thanks to...

Answer: $795 Million ANNUALLY in checking fees
You could buy 2 fidget spinners for EVERY American and still some money left over with that amount that young people pay in banking fees
Here were the two key takeaways based on recent research from NerdWallet (spoiler alert: It’s all about the overdraft fees):
The median bank overdraft fee in the U.S., including university-affiliated accounts, is $35 [3], and the average college student overdraws his or her account 2.2 times per year,...

As your seniors head off to college in the fall, you better arm them with the information they need to succeed financially during and after college. The biggest issue they will deal with in college: Student Loans. They will be required to go through an online “counseling” process which I would describe as “too little, too late” just before their loan is disbursed. I was trying to come up with a fun way (Ok, I might be stretching it here) to get them to review what in...

Investors loved the IPO (shares shot up from IPO price of $17 to $29 at one point on the first day of trading) but when it came time to announce their first quarterly results as a public company, well….I will let the chart from YahooFinance do the talking:
Ben Carlson, a blogger, titled a recent blog post on this disappointment: A Good Lesson For Millennial Investors. So, what did it teach them?
It’s still too early tell whether Snapchat will be a successful investment or company but...

From the Guardian comes an interesting interactive which displays long-term trends in disposable income among different age groups in different countries. Students start by entering an age and a country (all G-8 countries are represented) and then see a series of charts that show three different analyses:
How has the specific age group seen their real disposable incomes, taking into account inflation, change since 1979?
How does their age group stack up with the same age group in different...

A whole lot of peoples’ pain ($33 billion in overdraft fees) seems like an opportunity to one entrepreneur!
From BusinessInsider:
Mark Cuban was crushed with overdraft fees in his 20s. Now he’s backing an app that’s trying to help people avoid having to pay them. The billionaire has invested in a new app called Dave that aims to predict coming expenses for users to help prevent them from overdrafting on their bank accounts.
Have your students go to Dave.com and review the app:...

What does a distinguished professor do during her sabbatical? Curate personal finance resources, of course! In this blog post, Barbara O’Neill shares the fruits of her hundreds of hours of labor in putting together three awesome resource lists (see bottom of post for links to her lists), including what what she considered the “best of the best” from the NGPF library. As she describes below, the purpose of her odyssey was to replenish her “well” of creative...

A teacher at our recent FinCamp reminded me that we should not forget about the importance of the mechanics of personal finance transactions. What good is teaching students about the importance of investing if they don’t know how to go about setting up an account to buy/sell investments. While we have a activities on how to select a credit card and a bank account, we don’t answer the basic question that many young investors have which is “How do I buy a stock?”
Rather...

Answer (from ID Analytics report): 72%
Questions for students:
Why do you think 18-22 year olds aren’t able to access credit?
May not be familiar with CARD Act which requires those under 21 to have a co-signer or independent source of income to apply for a credit card.
Lack of experience with credit leads to low credit scores
Bad experience with credit may be another reason for low credit score
When do you think you will apply for credit for the first time? For what purpose?
What...

First an admission. I have never used Snapchat. Despite that, I thought their upcoming IPO would be a good hook to get students interested in how the stock market works. Before diving into the specifics of Snapchat (actually it is their parent company, SNAP, who is going public), here’s a good video from Wall Street Survivor that explains what an IPO is:
Questions:
Describe in your own words, what an Initial Public Offering (or IPO) is.
What role does an investment banker play in the...

What’s a Web Quest? We know how important it is for young people to learn to use the web as a research tool. In this era where the lines between advertising and editorial are increasingly blurred, students need to know where to look to find reliable sources of information and advice. They need to cast a skeptical eye and know the right questions to ask. Given all the information available out there, we need to give them practice so they can discern the signal from the noise.
That’s...

I am always amazed when I am searching Google for interesting news stories about credit cards how frequently the articles detail how the “bad guys” manage to steal credit card information. Identity theft can seem like an adult problem to many teens (unless their parents or they have been personally victimized), so I thought this quick WebQuest might bring the topic home to them. I thought it would be interesting to provide an update to my earlier 2015 post titled (apologies to Paul...

I was thinking about this question recently for two reasons: 1) the $23 million fine that CFPB handed down to a few credit reporting agencies for deceptive marketing around credit scores and 2) As fewer millennials choose credit compared to debit, the number of credit invisibles increase. So, what can we learn from this article from the Atlantic (approximately 10 minutes in length)?
My notes:
Chicken or the egg problem with credit: “If you think about the credit-invisible population in this...

Those who use NGPF resources know that we place a premium on teaching students how to navigate the web, discern credible sources of information and do the research required to make sound financial decisions. Occasionally we get pushback that our content should be “commercial free” and that linking to an online article that has ads anywhere on the page is “commercial” and students should not be subjected such distraction. Newsflash: The Internet has gone commercial. All...

Chart of the Week, Question of the Day, Research, WebQuest, Current Events, Entrepreneurship

Answer: Great infographic from How Much? shows the percentage of jobs in a market created by start-up companies (defined as “as businesses that began operating in a particular year. There is no prior business activity associated with the startups.”). The bigger the circle, the higher the percentage of jobs that come from start-ups.
Here’s the graphic:
Questions:
How vibrant is the start-up environment in your community? How would you find out this information?
Do you...

Sending form...

One more thing!

Before your subscription to our newsletter is active, you need to confirm your email
address by clicking the link in the email we just sent you. It may take a couple
minutes to arrive, and we suggest checking your spam folders just in case!

Teacher Account Log In

Thank you for registering for an NGPF Teacher Account!

Your new account will provide you with access to NGPF Assessments and Answer Keys. It may
take up to
1 business day for your Teacher Account to be activated; we will notify you once the
process is
complete.

Thanks for joining our community!

The NGPF Team

Want a daily question of the day?

Subscribe to our blog and have one delivered to your inbox each morning!

Create a
Username & Password

Welcome!

You are now part of the #FinHero movement!

Use the Nav Bar to find courses, teaching resources, our blog, and more!

If you’re looking for ALL we offer on a specific topic, check out our unit pages.

First visit to our site? Check out of Questions of the Day under the Resources tab!

Need help navigating the site? Find us online for a live chat in the bottom right of your screen! If not, head to the Help Center and we will get back to you ASAP.

This site uses cookies to deliver our services, to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. By continuing to use our site, you acknowledge that you have read, understand, and accept our
Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Your use of our website is subject to these policies and terms.